


Homelonging

by Jazzy_Kandra



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson, SANDERSON Brandon - Works, The Alloy of Law - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Era 1.5, Gen, Spoilers for Bands and Secret History, a beard is a perfect disguise, in the great tradition of Brandon Sanderson I have chosen a faux compound word for the title
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-14 00:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12996303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzy_Kandra/pseuds/Jazzy_Kandra
Summary: Martel's father had always told her there were many great puzzles still left to be solved in the world, but then again, he had been a mathematician. Still, the last place she would have expected to meet one was out on her daily stroll through the park, but life had a tendency of never going quite as she expected...A short story about hope, lost, and finding your way again set around a hundred years after the Final Ascension. Slight AU. Mistfic, part of the Mistshot universe.





	1. A Stranger in the Park

Martel loved crisp mornings like this one. They made her feel alive again.

The park on the top terrace of New Seran was as beautiful as ever today. Only the first rays of red sunlight peeked above the snowcapped mountains of the Seran Range, not yet dismissing last night’s thick mist.  Mist still clung to the park’s brick walkways and byways, swirling through its rows of cultivated flowers and trees.

As was her morning routine, Mart walked those empty paths alone. Her aging joints popped as she did so, her greying hair held in a thick bun so it would not get in the way as she went about her morning. Even at age fifty-four, however, she still had a slight bounce to her step. The old woman strolled towards her favorite bench, taking a seat by the fountain crowned by a statue of the Lord Mistborn. It was one her brother had carved long ago for the city when they had first created this park some thirty years ago, naming it Lestibourne Park. Mart had always thought it a silly name.

It was a nice park, nonetheless. Quiet, pretty, and with an excellent view of the mountains. She loved it.

Whistling to herself, Mart reached into her bag, taking out a handful of birdseed at the kit of pigeons that had landed on the sidewalk, bench, and the edge of the fountain. With her good hand, she threw a handful of birdseed at each group, whistling an old tune she had heard from her mother long ago, its words long forgotten though its meaning remembered. It was about the man who had gone to the edge of dusk, the Man of Hours the tales called him. She’d always liked that story.

In the midst of her peaceful morning, something had the audacity to disturb it. Most people, she supposed, wouldn’t have noticed any difference, but her tin-enhanced ears picked up the sound of booted feet walking down the central walkway which divided the park in half. Soon a lone figure emerged from the mist. Tall, gangly, and blond, he came to a stop in front of the nearest row of carefully cultivated marewill blossoms. Dressed in a flowing long coat, matching trousers, and a matching top hat, he looked like one of those newfangled Elendel noblemen given titles by the Lord Mistborn. Those young fops thought themselves on the cutting edge of style, but they’d actually toppled over it and fallen onto a pile of brightly colored coats and peacock feathers.

Still, this man was a curious sort. An oddity, for what young man would come here at such an early hour when the mists were still out and the sun had just kissed the horizon? Instead of taking her book from her satchel and reading it as was her normal wont, Mart stood, deciding to act on her curiosity and greet the young man.

What could it hurt? Sometimes even a life of monotony needed a splash of color.

“Good morning,” he said, still inspecting the marewills. Mart started. She wasn’t even half-way across the promenade that rounded the fountain. Even in an empty park like this one, she doubted most people could hear them…unless he was also a Tineye. Rusts. It seemed she was dealing with another Allomancer. “Ah. I’ve forgotten...You’re Pensley, correct?”

Mart blinked. Most people didn’t call her that these days. No, wait, that...she shook her head. To him, she was just another old lady who took daily strolls through the park.

No one cared about Martel. It was easier that way.

“Yes, Martel Pensley,” she said, frowning slightly. _How did he know my surname, though?_ “Most people call me Mart.”

He turned his head, looked down at her, and smiled. Over his right eye, he wore a thick black eyepatch. She hadn’t noticed that from the side, of course. Oddly enough, it made him look even more like a nobleman, not less. His face was more lined than she had expected, and he wore a full-beard as well, speckled with a few white hairs. Given his full head of curly blond hair and perfect teeth, however, she doubted he was even as old as forty. Probably around thirty-five or so, she decided.

“You may have heard of my twin brother,” she began. It was the only reason she could think of why anyone would know her last name these days. “Austin Pensley, the sculptor…”

He frowned slightly, then rubbed that silly looking beard of his. She wasn’t sure what was more ridiculous, that or the Rusting top hat. “The youth who carved the statues of the Lady Mistborn and the Last Emperor?” he asked, rising an eyebrow. “Most of them, I should say. I read Pensley fell off a scaffolding before they had a chance to place the finishing touches on Vin...From what I read, the statue on top of the fountain here was one of their first works of public art. It’s spectacular. Like the artist chiseled and breathed life into the marvel itself. It’s said to be the spitting image of Lestibourne in his youth.”

Harmony. The man was _versed_ in art history? Well. Young nobles did have strange hobbies these days, especially those possessing new money like this young man. Perhaps he had studied the subject at the Lord Mistborn’s new university in Elendel.

“Yes, the accident ruined his hands,” she said, shaking her head. “Austin slunk out of high society after that. I took care of him for a number of years before he passed into the Beyond…”

The man sighed, then nodded, placing his hands in his pockets, and walked down the promenade some distance before speaking again. “Odd.”

“Why is that?” she asked, perking her head.

“You’re a Tineye…too?” he said, then shrugged. He looked back at her over his shoulder, his lips flattened into a line. “Or an older woman with excellent ears. Which is it?”

“The former. Allomancy runs in families, you know,” she explained. “It is odd, but I have fifteen brothers and sisters, my parents were good Survivorists.” Strangely, he flinched at that news. Most people didn’t realize she was also a Tineye, though. Mart tried to keep that a secret. It was rare enough to have more than one Allomancer in the same family, let alone two of the same type. “You’re peculiar yourself, young man.”

He laughed. It was a good laugh. Warm, lively, likable. She liked the sound of it. “I’ve been called worse things.”

“I never did catch your name,” she added. “You knew mine, it’s only fair to share.”

“Call me Kell,” he answered, turning to leave.

“Named for the Survivor,” Mart said. Those kinds of names were quite popular among the nobility these days. Perhaps it was because they used to kill people like him and were besieging their god for forgiveness. “What is it short for, Kelson? Kelsium? Kelsiel?”

Kell snorted. “Certainly. No, Mart. Just Kell,” he said. That wasn’t an answer. “Have a good day, Miss Pensley.”

He inclined his head in farewell, turned around, and walked alone down the promenade, the mist trailing after his feet. What a strange yet polite young man. She hoped to see him tomorrow.

He had certainly livened her monotone day.


	2. Many Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More meetings and more suspicious actions, but Mart is nowhere closer to knowing the truth about her new friend than she was at their first meeting...

Over the next few weeks, Mart came to the park each and kept to her normal routine. She fed the birds, and read through two whole books since she had met that strange fop, but had not seen head or tale of him since their first strange meeting. Despite its peculiarities, she had hoped to see him again. Now, she was beginning to think their meeting had been a hallucination. A trick of the mist, so to speak. Perhaps he had even been a mistwraith, taking up an old skeleton and going for a stroll among the living. Or, worse, some kind of ghost.

Mart snorted at that last idea. She didn’t believe in ghosts or mistwraiths. Mart wasn’t the type of person to jump at spirits in the mists. But, silhouetted on her bench was a man lying in shadow…asleep on her bench. At this sight, she did jump a little, but calmed down once she realized whom it was. It seemed her phantom acquaintance had come back to haunt her at last.

He wasn’t just a figure of her imagination, after all.

With a hump, Mart crossed her arms. Kell was much too tall for the five foot wooden board, of course. Even with his legs bent, his bare feet hung partially off the bench, his head rested on a small bag leaned against the frail armrests. Unlike the first time she had seen him, he was wearing neither suit nor hat, but he had, instead, pulled up the hood of his dark overcoat to shield his head against the cold, damp night. A few lingering strains of mist curled up around his fingers and toes.

What kind of rich fob went around at night without shoes? She shook her head. _Just go find another bench_ , she told herself, feeling an odd mix of concern and compassion. _There are plenty of others in the park, Mart. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week._

Before she could move on, however, the flock of pigeons she fed seed to each day had come to partake of their daily meal, landing in a wide circle around her feet. One of the birds alighted on Kell’s knees in a flurry of black, grey, and white feathers, another two birds alighted on the back of the bench behind his head. Before Mart could shoe them away, the first bird waddled up to his chest, put its beak in his face, and squawked. The ungodly noise failed wake him. He must have extinguished his tin. Then it lowered its head and plucked at one of the brown leaves stuck in his beard, tugging hard until…

It shot upward, not flying but propelled by some unseen force. Mart burned tin and noticed something silver shimmering in its wake. A piece of metal? But Kell was a Tineye, or so he had claimed. Unless he was a Twinborn. Ah, right. That had to be it. She must have misheard him the other day. Oddly, the man didn’t _look_ like he had a drop of Terris blood in him. Still, it was the only logical explanation.

“What the hell?” he said, glaring at the bird’s flightpath. “Can’t a man get any sleep without…?”

Mart cleared her throat. “Normally,” she said, coming a few steps closer. He didn’t turn his head to look at her, though part of her felt he had glanced at her anyway…just with the dead eye beneath the blindfold. She shivered, no, that made no sense. “But most with your wealth stay in inns, not on a park bench, Kelson.”

That caught his attention. “It’s just Kell,” he grumbled, sitting up and slinging his legs off the bench. Quickly, he grabbed his knapsack, stuffing a few loose pieces of dark cloth back into the bag that had escaped its confines. “If you must know, I had some business in town last night, by the time I was done, all the inns were close.”

“You don’t have a place in town?”

“I’m from Elendel,” he answered a little too quickly for her comfort. “Places there don’t close so early.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” she said. “But normally, people _plan_ for this sort of thing.”

He muttered something under his breath that she didn’t catch, then frowned slightly. “By Preservation’s Dick, I am an idiot. My associates and I are planning to do some business out here over the next year or so, it wouldn’t be amiss if we bought some lodgings, I think…” He didn’t seem to like the idea, though.

“You didn’t _think_ of that before?” she asked, giving him a skeptical look. “Are you sure you weren’t just drunk?”

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen someone pass out in the park because they had had too much liquor. It was just the first time it was someone she knew, even if barely.

He took a moment to roll his shoulders back to get a kink out of his neck. It gave an audible creak. “I haven’t been drunk in _years_ ,” Kell replied. “But I swear, I would’ve gotten a better night’s sleep on a slab of stone than this damned bench. Less likely to give splinters, at least.”

“I see.” She had the distinct feeling that he was somehow lying to her, but, well, he didn’t _smell_ drunk, either. Not even the faintest wisp of alcohol of any kind…but she did notice _something_ else. He smelled like he’d been working with manure. In fact, he had butches of soot all over him from head to toe. Mart lifted a hand to her chin. How…particular. “What of the grime?”

“Part of said business,” he answered, a sharpened grin spreading across his face. Mart rolled her eyes. She suddenly got the distinct feeling that ‘befriending’ this man would lead to a lot more eye rolling as time wore on. Wonderful. Perhaps her eyes would roll out of her head and under the bench one of these days. “But I’m afraid I’m late for a meeting. I’ll be seeing you, Miss Pensley.”

 _Great._ She gave him a nod in reply.

Then he went back behind his bench, grabbed a large bag she hadn’t noticed earlier, and took off, flying on lines of steel as the last of the mist burned off in the early morning sun. Strangely, the bag rattled in his wake.

\---

Three days later, she was reading the last portion of her book. This author had a thing for writing slow at the beginning, but always caught you off guard near the end, bringing each novel home with panache and style. Certainly, the descriptions could use a bit more flourish and flair, but she liked these books all the same. Not all writers needed to read like the classic tales written by Slowswift of old, the first great author and poet in Elendel.

Mart turned the page, but paused in her reading. Her tin-enhanced ears picked up the gentle tap of a pair of feet land on the ground with subtle grace, their owner hidden by the still lingering mist that covered the park this morning. A few moments later, Kell emerged from the mist like a specter of an age long past, the tails of his dark long coat swirling slightly _with_ the mist which tailed after him. She lifted an eyebrow. Kell certainly had a passion for dramatic entrances.

At the sight of her, he smiled a little. “Ah, I see, I won’t be able to rest on my favorite bench tonight.”

“It’s morning.” She shut her book. It seemed she would just have to wait to find out if that four-eyed scholar could save herself from her imprisonment. “Have you been up all night?”

He shrugged. “I’ve always been fond of being late for important meetings.”

What?

“I had an important appointment with sleep itself.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. This conversation was making her feel distinctly like a mother despite that she did not have any children, despite her age. “And you thought to sleep, here,” she said, gesturing to the bench she sat on. “Again.”

“Not exactly,” he replied, at least he had the decency to look slightly sheepish. “We’ve been busy.”

She let out a sigh, adding her breath to the mist. It seemed his company hadn’t yet found lodging in the city, then. “I can speak with a friend of mine, he can get you a room in his inn this morning. Perhaps help your people find lodgings in the city, too.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least friends can do.”

His smile widened in to a toothy grin. “Indeed.”

For a split moment, she wondered if her association with this man had been a mistake, but she shoved that thought off the terrace. He might be a fop and an idiot, but he hadn’t done her any harm.

Mart was honestly glad just to have a new friend. Even if he was an odd one.

\---

She ran into Kell various times in the park after that, despite that he had a room in Tailium’s Inn, and he soon acquired a small estate on the second terrace in the city below. It seemed he enjoyed early mornings as much as she did, an odd trait for such a young lord. Odder still, however, was his interest in the plants and the flowers planted in the park.

On one misty morning, Mart had caught him making sketches of a rose bush, carefully drawing each petal, each leaf, and each stem and branch with a practiced hand. This time, she’d managed to sneak up on him, causing him to jump and whip out a glass knife in quick succession, drawing a trail of blood from her forearm as she raised it to protect her face against the sudden strike. She let out a yelp, stepping back as pain shot up her arm and blood dripped from the wound.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” he warned, sliding the knife into the sheath tied to his belt behind the flap of his long coat. Mart spotted the shimmer of another glass knife on the left side. She hadn’t noticed them before…or the vails of metal which hung from his belt. How much steel was he using each night? Was Kell some kind high speed messenger between New Seran and Elendel? That might explain…quite a bit, actually. “Let me see your arm.”

She did as he asked, though with obvious weariness. “You have a lot of strange skills for a nobleman.”

“Hmm?” He said, inspecting the injury. A moment later, he opened his knapsack and cut off a few of the stray pieces of cloth she had seen the other day. Carefully, he cleaned the wound. “If you mean this, I don’t know much about medicine. That was always Sa—my Terris friend’s area of expertise, not mine. I only learned the basics.”

“Ah.” This conversation was very strange, Mart decided, but so were most conversations she had with this man. She winced as he placed something on the cut. “And the drawing? It’s still amateurish, but you have a good eye for detail and observation.”

“You’re an artist,” he began, his good eye flashing in the mist, “like your brother?”

Mart winced again, but not from the wound. Her stomach twisted. This was too close to the truth for comfort.

“Yes,” she replied, voice small.

“Then I’m doubly sorry for wounding your arm,” he said as he wrapped the wound with another strand of cloth. Strange, part of her hadn’t expected an apology. Kell…was Kell, he didn't seem like the type. Perhaps it was just the noble blood. “I only draw flowers and plants, it might explain my lack of skills. You could say I have an interest in modern botany, it’s a hobby of mine.”

“That’s an odd hobby for a noble—“

He pulled a bit too hard on the wrap, producing a yelp and a sneer. “I’m no nobleman,” he said, unnecessarily tart. “Just a bastard.”

That…wasn’t what she had expected. Muted, she nodded her head.

“Do you have any suggestions for making these sketches better?” he asked, picking up the leather-bound sketchbook from where it had fallen. The sudden change of topic threw her for a lope, she felt dislodged, uncertain. “Martel?”

“Yes, let me see it.”

That morning had led to the first time she had talked about any form of art in years. Decades. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed it.

It reminded her of times gone by, of whispers of years faded and gone. Of a life that was no more.

**Author's Note:**

> No, Kingsdaughter, Martel is not Kelsier's girlfriend. That's someone else. She's not even dating him at this point in time... xD


End file.
